


Courage to Continue

by soroga



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Unexpected friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24897115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soroga/pseuds/soroga
Summary: A scary encounter leads Bernadetta to discover a new literary obsession, and maybe even to make a new friend.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert & Bernadetta von Varley
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	Courage to Continue

Ashe knows he spent too long in the Abyss library when he clambers up the stairs into darkness.

He clutches his book closer to his chest. Abyss is underground, but at least they always keep the torches lit. In the monastery, the wall sconces are just far enough apart to leave creepy shadows in every corner. 

“I guess I should hurry back,” he says to himself. It’s not that far from his room. As creepy as Garreg Mach is in the dark, he knows the way. It’ll be fine.

Or so he thinks. But he’s barely made it into the student quarters when he starts hearing strange noises. 

A high, childish giggle, coming from nowhere. A long, ominous _creaaaak_ that echoes in his ears. 

Ashe hunches over and walks faster. The student quarters aren’t haunted. If they were, he’d know it, because Lysithea would have burned them to the ground already.

That leaves him with no explanation for the foreboding whisper he hears, just a little too distant for him to make out the words, but he strains for it anyway. _“...ower..ill…”_

Power? _Kill!?_

He wishes he had his bow, but he left it in his room. Which is fine - he’s almost there. He just has to get past the girls’ hall and he’s there. 

He picks up the pace. The moon is full, and it shines down through the columns, creating darker shadows in the gloom. Ashe eyes them nervously, but nothing appears from them. Instead, he hears something behind him. Footsteps, getting closer.

Gulping, Ashe turns.

The figure standing there is small and pale, almost transparent in the light of the moon. It has empty eyes, and it’s humming something discordant as it comes closer to Ashe, metal glinting in its raised fist. 

Ashe drops his book.

And then he’s running, sprinting as fast as he can through the halls, too scared to be worried about waking anyone up. He dashes past the girls’ rooms, past Raphael and Ignatz’s, running so hard he nearly slams into Dedue’s door before he manages to lunge for his own instead. He throws his door open as fast as he can and then quickly shut, collapsing inside with his back pressed against it, panting. 

Out in the hall, the figure keeps humming, the silver in its hand glinting and then disappearing with every movement of its wrist. That slows at the same time its feet do. 

The figure bends down, pale fingers wrapping around the spine of a book. 

“... _The Unabridged Adventures of the Luna Knight_?” 

Bernie stays up _all night_ reading her new book.

\--Not that it’s really her book! She’s going to give it back, the second she figures out where to give it back to! Because this obviously isn’t the kind of book they got in the monastery library. There’s action, and adventure, and romance, and… _romance_...

Bernie blushes just reading some of the last part. She’s all snug and cozy in her room, with no one to see or bother her, so it’s fine! But some of the stuff written there is just...wow. It’s so good that she ends up taking notes as she reads. Most of her own stuff is action with just a bit of romance, but she’s so fired up just reading some of the scenes that she wants to try her hand writing her own. 

She gets so into it that she completely forgets her embroidery. She’d been pretty far along when she’d decided to take it with her for a late night stroll, and it’d been so soothing to do when she walked - nice and simple, just outline flower, fill flower, outline flower. But even though she only had a row left, it stays unfinished all night and well into the morning, when Edelgard knocks on her door.

“Bernadetta? Are you all right?”

Bernadetta squeaks and hides the book under her pillow. “Yes! I’m fine! I’m just...sick. Really sick. You don’t want to come in here!” 

Edelgard sighs. “Sick?” The doorknob rattles. Bernadetta shrinks back. “I should take you to the infirmary, if you’re not well enough for class.”

“No, no, I feel much better!” Bernadetta scrambles off the bed, combing her fingers through her hair and wincing when she immediately hits a knot. “I’ll be out in a second!” 

“I’ll see you in class, Bernadetta,” Edelgard threatens, and then Bernadetta is blissfully alone once more. 

She sighs. Edelgard’s a great person. If only she wasn’t so scary.

Bernadetta makes it out of her room a few minutes later. She’s still in the uniform she was wearing yesterday and she didn’t _really_ comb her hair, and she can feel every last person she passes by staring at her. Stupid! She should have taken longer to be more presentable. But then she’d have been late, and everyone would have turned to the back of the classroom and _looked at her_ as she tried to quietly get to her seat…

Bernadetta shudders. It’s not even worth thinking about.

She’s on time, and the only one who bothers her is Caspar, who shouts “hi, Bernadetta!” at her as she scoots past him to get to her seat. She hunches down and doesn’t say anything back, trying to be small and quiet so that no one looks at her, and only realizes too late that she should have said _something_ back. Now Caspar’s going to think she hates him, and he’s going to hate her right back!

She digs her hands into her hair. She wishes she was like the Luna Knight, brave and confident and beautiful. So many people in the book loved her, and when they didn’t, she didn’t care at all. 

The Luna Knight reminds her of Edelgard. They’re both so strong and determined and they don’t let anything get them down, even if they’re not totally fearless. Though - Bernie flushes, thinking about some parts in the book, when the Luna Knight was subduing the Fell Knight, and then after when she got married to Duke Riegan. They’re not completely the same. Bernie can’t imagine Edelgard tying up the Fell Knight to the base of her own evil tower and taking her armor off, piece by piece…

No, bad Bernie! Not in class! 

“Are you having a trouble, Bernadetta?” Petra asks, which is when Bernadetta realizes she said that out loud.

“N-no, I’m fine! I’m sorry, please ignore me!” Bernadetta wails, covering her face with her hands.

Class drags on forever. Bernadetta spends half of it daydreaming about the Luna Knight, replaying all the best bits and pieces of her adventures in her head and making up some new ones, too. She wonders if the Luna Knight would like carnivorous plants. Probably. She seemed like she liked a lot of things in the book. 

Finally, they’re freed long enough to eat lunch, and Bernadetta dashes off to the meal hall to grab a tray quickly. She always does this so she can eat in her room, but if she’s _extra fast_ today, maybe she’ll be able to read a whole chapter!

Unfortunately, she’s not fast enough. As she’s standing in line, Ferdinand troops in behind her. “Hello, Bernadetta!” He says. “How lovely to have a chance to speak with you today.” 

“Yes, hi,” Bernadetta mutters. Drat. Maybe if Ferdinand starts in on a speech, she’ll be able to tiptoe away? 

“How are you doing?” Ferdinand asks.

“Fine,” Bernadetta says, staring at the dining hall attendants. How long does it take to bring someone some soup?

To make matters worse, some boy from another class joins them. “Um, hello,” he says hesitantly.

“Ah, hello!” Ferdinand says. “I don’t believe we’ve met before. I am Ferdinand von Aegir. And this is Bernadetta von Varley!” He adds while Bernadetta is still trapped there, staring longingly at her empty plate. 

“I’m Ashe,” the other boy says. “It’s very nice to meet you! I’m sorry I can’t stop and talk longer, but I’m actually looking for a book.”

Bernadetta’s grip tightens on her plate.

“A book?” Ferdinand asks.

“Yes. It’s a very special book. I really have no one to blame but myself for losing it, but I was hoping maybe one of you had seen it. It’s about the Luna Knight, but it isn’t the typical volume on her. It’s called _The Unabridged Adventures_ \- ”

Bernadetta shrieks and runs off, still holding her plate.

She should have known! Stupid, stupid! Who finds the perfect book just lying there in the hall!? 

This ‘Ashe’, whoever he is, left it there to trick her. She knows he did!

After that bizarre encounter, Ashe wasn’t expecting to run into Bernadetta von Varley ever again.

So of course, she finds him in the library before the day is over, stomping up to his table and slamming something on top of it.

“Oh, hi Bernadetta,” Ashe says, peering over. It’s a book - but not just any book! He brightens immediately. “Oh, that’s amazing! I’d almost given up hope someone would find it. Thank you so much! I hope it wasn’t too much trouble to find.”

“Aha!” Bernadetta points an accusing finger at him. “I knew it! Monster! Villain! I’m not falling for your wily schemes, you know!” 

Ashe opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. 

“You think just by lurking around in this library like a creep you’ll be able to trap me in your plot! Ugh! You just want to laugh at me with everyone else! I didn’t even mean to take your stupid book!”

“Um,” Ashe starts. “Bernadetta--” 

She abruptly turns white as a ghost. “I’m sorry I called it stupid, I’m sorry I took it, I’m sorryyyyyy!” 

She dashes off again, wailing. 

“...”

At a loss for what else to do, Ashe looks down at the book. 

It looks fine. No dents or scratches. It’s a shame Bernadetta ran off like that; she clearly took excellent care of it, and it was his own fault for dropping it in the hallway when he got scared. He’ll have to figure out a way to apologize to her that she’ll accept. Somehow he gets the feeling that walking up to her and saying “sorry” might not go over so well.

Sighing, he gives one cursory flip through the pages, preparing to drop his newly-returned book back into his bag.

That’s when a note slips out from between the pages, fluttering to the ground.

“Where’d that come from?” Ashe wonders to himself, bending to retrieve it. He’s pretty sure there weren’t any loose notes in the book when he got it out of Abyss. Maybe Bernadetta accidentally left some homework in it?

He flips the paper open, scanning it to check.

And his eyes widen.

He clutches the paper in both hands, eyes moving frantically. 

Could it be? Could there really be someone out there who understands the Luna Knight the same way Ashe does? 

...and could it really be Bernadetta von Varley?

Bernadetta stays in her room for three days after that.

Well, not three _whole_ days. She’s pretty sure one of her classmates would break her door down if she did that, and then _anyone_ could see into her room! It’s not worth the risk. So she keeps going out for classes, but that’s it. No more garden walks or midnight excursions. She’s not going to make it easy for that Ashe person to ambush her!

Which is what makes it completely unfair when he ambushes her in the greenhouse.

Bernadetta squeaks and raises her watering can like a throwing knife. “I’m here for chores! I just need to water the plants!” 

Ashe glances at her, then cautiously takes a few steps back. “I’m here to water the plants too,” he says. “My friend Dedue has some in the corner that need special care and I thought I might check on them while he’s busy.”

“Oh.” Bernadetta lowers the watering can down to eye level, peering through the wide hole left by the handle at Ashe. He _looks_ genuine...but a lot of people do, right before they trick Bernie and laugh at her. “...I’m going to stay on this side of the greenhouse.”

“Okay,” Ashe says. “I’ll stay on this side.” 

Bernadetta keeps glancing over at him every few seconds, waiting to see what his angle is here. 

When she finally hears it, it’s not what she expects.

“I wanted to thank you for taking such good care of _The Unabridged Adventures of the Luna Knight_ ,” he says. “It was careless of me to lose it, and it makes me feel a lot better knowing it was in such good hands.”

“Wha - good hands? Me!?” Bernadetta is so startled that she dumps the contents of her can out onto a bush. “Why are you saying that?”

“Because it’s true,” Ashe says. “The Luna Knight is a really important figure to me.. I aspire to be like her, and I’ve loved the stories about her since I was young. I was so glad to finally be able to track down the full versions of them, and then I lost them by my own carelessness. So I was really happy to realize that you’d treated those stories even better than I had.” 

“Really?” Bernadetta busies herself with her watering can. It’s almost entirely empty now, but hopefully Ashe can’t tell that. “...what do you like about her?” Is it all the stuff she did with the Fell Knight? That part is Bernadetta’s favorite.

“Well, she’s a very strong person,” Ashe says. “She has faith in her convictions. Bad things happen to her, but they don’t change what she believes in or who she is. And she’s really brave! I wish I had her courage.”

Bernadetta takes a deep breath and turns to face Ashe again. “I’d like her courage too,” she says. “I’m scared of a lot of different things. --But only the scary things!” She adds hastily. “It’s not my fault there are so many of them!”

“I understand that,” Ashe says. “After all, I ran from you that night because I got scared, didn’t I?” 

“...oh.” Bernadetta hadn’t even thought of that. “I scared you? Really? Little old Bernie?” 

Ashe laughs sheepishly. “I told you, I’m not brave like the Luna Knight! But I’m going to try and be more like her. And that means being less scared of, well, ‘little old Bernie.’ Maybe you could try and be less scared of me too?” 

Bernadetta looks at his smiling, hopeful face. 

Like this, he doesn’t look scary at all.

“Okay,” she says. “I’m going to try.”

“Great!” Ashe smiles. “Because I have to admit, I’ve been dying to have someone to talk to about the Luna Knight. Even my friends who like knight stories usually like different ones. I don’t think you had enough time to finish the book. Do you want me to bring it to you later? And then maybe we could talk about it over tea or something.” 

“You’re….going to give it back to me?” Bernadetta’s mouth hangs open. She’d given up hope of ever finding out what terrible, wonderful revenge the Luna Knight was going to enact on Duke Riegan for cheating on her! 

“Well, sure,” Ashe says. “You took great care of it before. Just promise me you’ll tell me what you think of the ending.” 

Bernadetta hesitates. She doesn’t know Ashe very well. This could still be some scheme to trick her and laugh at her.

But…

“Okay,” she says. 

Just like the Luna Knight, she decides to be brave. Just this once. 

Edelgard is passing by the classrooms on the way to dinner when she hears an unfamiliar sound. 

Is that...Bernadetta laughing? 

The doors are heavy, but Edelgard has gotten very good at moving through the monastery soundlessly. She gets one of the doors open just enough so she can peer through it at what’s inside.

Bernadetta’s sitting inside with someone from the Blue Lions - Ashe, if she remembers his name correctly. There’s a plate of cookies and two teacups on the table in front of them, and also a messy pile of loose notes and an open book.

“No, I’m serious!” Ashe insists over Bernadetta’s laughter, but he’s smiling too. “I know it’s a little odd, but I just like the solution she found. I thought she handled the whole thing really well.”

“‘Handled,’ heh.” Bernadetta coughs. “I like that part too. It made a lot of sense, especially with what happened before with the Fell Knight. But wouldn’t it have been even better if she made Duke Riegan go and do a bunch of quests before she’d take him back?” 

“Oh, that would have been great!” Ashe grabs one of the pieces of paper. “Where’s that list of quest items we put together...hey Bernadetta, do you have it?”

“Yeah, right here! Imagine if the Luna Knight made him go and get some Holy Scales or something.” Bernadetta giggles. “That’d make what happens with the wyverns right after even funnier, right?”

Edelgard shuts the door again, smiling.

She usually leaves Bernadetta alone, not wanting to frighten her more than she apparently does just by existing, but maybe she’ll ask Bernadetta if she wants to join her for dinner sometime this week. She has a feeling Bernadetta is feeling a little braver these days.


End file.
